ABSTRACT
In an age when the global is ever present in the local, when diversity is an increasing constant in the classroom and when communication across institutions is a necessity rather than a choice, collaboration is ever more consequential. To function in isolation as an individual or an institution is foolhardy if not virtually impossible in today’s new society. The new social conditions heralded by advances in communication technology, the diversification of society and the demands and excesses of the new economy have not replaced the need for human contact in building long-term, trusting relationships, even when these relationships are conducted across cultures, systems, or geographical locations (Castells, 1996). The social webs through which individuals and institutions typically operate continue to require tending and nurturing. Dyke (2000), for example, asserts that, “technology cannot
replace the need for strong leadership and human interactions’’ (p. 19). Online communication supplements rather than replaces human contact in many areas of everyday life according to Castells and others. Even participants who spend most of their times in virtual worlds and communities must reenter RL (real-life) to reengage in social relations (Turkle, 1995).
